


Colpo di Fulmine

by AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)



Category: Prinsessen paa Ærten | The Princess and the Pea - Hans Christian Andersen
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, F/M, Female Character of Color, Implied/Referenced Racism, autistic characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 03:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15039413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Margarethe is a simple embroiderer, whose market stall Prince Frederik sometimes passes. No more—until the prince's guard draws his attention to her work.





	Colpo di Fulmine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



She was hawking hand-sewn trinkets in the market square when he strode past, leading his horse and three guardsmen.

“Your Highness, wait?” asked one guardsman—guardswoman, Margrethe corrected herself, from the pitch of the voice.

And—of course the handsome blond man was _Prince Frederik_. Margrethe took a deep breath, another, to compose herself. “Purses for sale!” she recited with her ordinary façade of cheer. “Handkerchiefs, scarves, with the most beautiful embroidery in Denmark!”

His Highness followed his guardswoman to the stall, as the two guardsmen hung back, watching the square. “Decent,” he pronounced Margrethe’s inventory, fingering an uneven seam here, eyeing an asymmetric design there. “But—” He glanced her over, top to bottom, and smiled. Margrethe focused on that brilliant smile. “Certainly made by one of Denmark’s most beautiful.”

When the prince handed over his coins for two of the small purses—one dark with bright jagged lightning, one pale blue with tiny red roses; “my mother will appreciate the designs,” said he—his fingers brushed Margarethe’s, and for hours her skin burned.

* * *

The sound of a boot on cobbles startled Margarethe. She dropped the bundle of scarves into her cart without ceremony and turned, a curse on her lips that she bit back when he tilted up his hat to show his face.

“Your Highness!” hissed Margarethe in a whisper. “What are you—”

“I,” said Prince Frederik, and stopped, blushing red. “I wanted to ask about this knot, here.” He held out the purse embroidered with the tiny red roses. “I can’t figure out how to do it myself.”

Margarethe blinked several times. “You embroider?” she blurted, only just remembering in time that if he was sneaking then she ought to keep her voice down.

He reddened further. “It’s—soothing.”

“Oh,” said Margarethe, and put on a smile. “Yes. Please, sit,” she added, gesturing at the stool she usually occupied. “Let me find—”

The word on her tongue wandered off. She turned, instead, to rifle her supplies.

“Here,” said he. “I brought fabric and needle.”

“Oh!” Indeed he had. _Quality_ materials. She couldn’t afford such in a dozen lifetimes. “Then. To get _this_ knot, watch—”

When she had showed him three times, he took the needle from her hand, and her skin hummed.

* * *

She heard him coming: “ _Rag_ na…” The sound had laughter to it.

The guardswoman appeared before the prince did; it was only they two this time, though neither wore anything that particularly marked them as palacefolk, not townsfolk.

“So you’re the infamous embroidery seller,” said the guardswoman, halting at Margarethe’s stall.

“Margarethe of Silkeborg, madam,” said she.

“Margarethe,” repeated Prince Frederick, and the tone of his voice was one Margarethe could not properly identify, not having heard it before. Something like wonder?

“I’m Ragna, and of course you know Frederik,” said the guardswoman. “Forgive me for asking, but you look little like a Dane.”

Margarethe’s cheeks heated. Of course. Everyone else objected to her dark skin; why shouldn’t—

Well why _should_ he do anything but object to her on any grounds he could find? He, the prince of all Denmark, and to the coldest hells with her romantic fantasies—

—And she had been silent too long. “My, my mother was Italian, madam.”

Ragna nodded. “Her people came from Ethiopia or Libya via Rome, I have no doubt?”

Margarethe looked down. She didn’t know.

“Ragna, you’re being rude,” said Prince Frederik. “Hey. Miss Margarethe. Don’t be sad. Please.”

She raised her head enough to look at his nose. “I’m not sad. I’m—” She brushed a hand across her cheek. All the dust in the air. Got in her eyes.

 _Mama_ could have told her what to do.

“Ragna didn’t mean to say anything hurtful,” the prince said earnestly. “She only wants to learn about you from _you_.” He blushed. “Not just from me.”

Margarethe’s whole body jerked.

He held out a hand, palm up. “Lady Margarethe. May I kiss your hand?”

This wasn’t how she had pictured it going!

She laid her hand in his, and he raised it to his lips, both (she thought) red as sunset. Her skin sang.

* * *

“You look like a drowned cat,” said Margarethe, trying not to laugh.

“I _feel_ —” Thunder crashed, and Frederik stopped till it quieted, wincing. “I feel like a drowned cat.” He toed off one shoe; it was squelching. “But I had to see you. —To sew!” he blurted. “Stitch! Embroider!”

Margarethe laughed aloud. His face. So utterly comical!

Frederik pulled an exaggerated pout.

“Don’t you dare sit down until you’re dry,” Margarethe told him, and dug out a length of unornamented wool fabric; it would take no harm from the wet, unlike the wares she had whisked under cover when the downpour started. “Why are you sneaking about in the rain?”

Frederik hid his face in the fabric.

“It wasn’t raining when we left,” Ragna said from outside.

“Ragna!” Margarethe leaped up and all but dragged the woman inside the stall. “You shouldn’t have to stand out in the wet!”

“It seemed like he wanted to speak to you privately,” Ragna told her. “I can do my duty as easily from too far away to hear a whisper.”

Margarethe snorted, pulling out another length of wool. “And if he was planning to let you, he’s not half the man I thought him.”

“Excuse me,” said Frederik from behind the folded green cloth, “I’m just going to stay behind here…”

Margarethe whipped towards him. “You _were_! You _ass_!”

Ragna leaned toward her. “I’m glad he has you,” she confided in an overly loud whisper. “No one else dares call him on his shit.”

“Really?” Margarethe blinked several times, face heating. “ _No_ one?”

“I have my little sisters to think of,” said Ragna. “And His Majesty is…not known for patience.”

That he was not, Margarethe admitted.

“Our prince will be a fine king if he has someone like you by his side,” Ragna added.

“Yep,” said Frederik, flipping the folds of fabric over his head. “Staying under here forever.”

Margarethe, still blushing—someone like _her_?—laughed some more and reached for his hand. His thumb stroked across her palm, a gentle melody.

* * *

“Hey, Margarethe!” called Lisbet the grandmotherly weaver from three stalls down. “Your gentleman caller returns!”

Margarethe leaned out to look Lisbet’s way. It was Frederik, sure enough, red-faced and dressed warmly but simply for stomping through the current blanket of snow. “Lisbet, you’re an embarrassment,” Margarethe called back.

“An embarrassment with a full purse!” crowed Lisbet, exchanging Frederik’s coins for a wrapped bundle.

“Pleasure to do business with you, young miss,” Frederik said loudly. “I shall just be going now…”

Margarethe put her head on the pile of purses and laughed.

“Hey, Margarethe,” Frederik said when her laughter had reduced to snorts and snickers, and she looked up. He’d sneaked into the stall, and was sitting on the second stool she’d given up and purchased, his fingers toying with the twine on the bundle. “Ragna is sweet on Lady Natalia. Lady Natalia is sweet on Ragna. And Christmas, which _just_ so happens to be the day after Natalia’s birthday, is coming.”

“And?” Margarethe asked.

“And I think it would be lovely if we could present the pair of them with a matched set of embroidered shoulder wraps, because God knows neither of them has taken any more subtle hint.”

“You’re sweet,” Margarethe told him, and tried to figure out how to say no. The one thing she didn’t have when Christmas was coming was time to make personal gifts. Especially large ones.

Frederik studied her face. “What’s wrong?”

Margarethe heaved a sigh. “Nothing. Nothing. I just…” She paused, scrabbling for words that wouldn’t come.

“I’m doing half the work, of course,” he told her, an odd note to his voice. “If that was your worry. I can commission you the other half if you need the money to make the time. If you have too many commissions already, pretend I’m your apprentice and put me to work?”

Margarethe stared at his nose.

Frederik shrugged. “My tutors are all milling about getting their own households ready for the holiday. No one will even notice I’m gone, except Ragna, and we aren’t mentioning in her hearing who this commission is _for_.”

“Of course not,” said Margarethe, smiling. “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”

“Not quite,” said Frederik. “You—you thought I was trying to take advantage of you, didn’t you?”

She hadn’t, exactly, but it wasn’t much of a leap.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said earnestly. “You _know_ I wouldn’t do that.” He looked away, face scarlet. “If I would do that, we would have been tumbling months ago. Probably. I think.”

Margarethe burned all over. “I didn’t think you wanted that,” she mumbled.

“Well, not _today_ I don’t,” he told her. “Busy busy. Yes?”

“Yes, yes!” She scooted her stool over. “Do you have any ideas on designs?”

Frederik pulled his notes from his pocket and unfolded them for her to look at. She ran her fingers along the page, trying to feel the texture of the stitches on the imagined fabric.

 _I want to kiss you,_ she thought. That was a bad idea. Surely it was a bad idea?

“I want to kiss you,” she said anyway.

He thumped the fabric bundle and notes onto the nearest flat surface and, lap thus freed, drew her close; their lips met in perfect harmony.

* * *

“It’s my parents,” Frederik said apologetically, and quietly enough that surely Ragna (admiring the goods at Lisbet’s stall) couldn’t hear. “Heir-and-a-spare, you know,” as if she did, but it made sense when she thought about it, “and Mother had enough trouble bearing me, so now that I’m old enough to marry…” He shrugged, eyes dark and downcast. “They’re inviting princesses from three continents and hope I’ll fall hopelessly in lust with one of them, and stay that way till we’re wedded and bedded.” He snorted. “Not that anyone’s asked what _I_ want.”

Well there was only one possible response to _that_. “What _do_ you want?” Margarethe asked softly.

“That depends,” he said, and looked straight at her. She gazed at his nose. “Look me in the eyes, please,” he added. “This is important.”

Swallowing, Margarethe shifted her gaze a little up. She’d never properly looked at his eyes before—midnight blue, and she a ship lost on the night sea.

“I’d like to marry you,” Frederik whispered. “Would you like that?”

She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t—the _words_ —they tangled on her tongue, threads knotted so tightly—

She reached for his hand, thinking already of the symphonies of his skin on hers—

And found her own hand was filled with a forgotten needle when he yelped, jerked away, and started laughing.

* * *

Margarethe shifted her position on the ludicrously tall bed. The sheets—well, they were by far the highest quality fabric she’d ever slept on, and she’d love to have satin of this quality for embroidering, but it wasn’t _her bed_ —too soft, too smooth. The nightdress was too long and the lace too scratchy, for all it too was the highest quality she’d seen.

And for some reason beyond knowing, there was a pebble somewhere in the heap of mattresses. Not between the top two, nor the second and third; she’d disassembled the bed that far to check before giving up and finding her kit, the lovely little embroidery kit that Frederik had gifted her a few visits ago. The dressing maids, Annelie and Tanya, hadn’t let her keep a single stitch else that she had brought to the palace gate—not even her underthings!

Granted, they were all soaked through by the thunderstorm. But still!

Margarethe lit the candle at the bedside, and by its light began to embroider on a white handkerchief a design her mother had taught her.

* * *

“I told you!” Frederik shouted, notes of joy and triumph in his voice. “I _told_ you only a real princess would have skin so soft that a _pea_ could bruise her under twenty mattresses!”

Margarethe, who was wearing _different_ tortuous textures of fabric and hadn’t got a wink of sleep all night, blushed and clutched the finished handkerchief tighter and said nothing.

“Princess Margarethe,” said Her Majesty Queen Jeanette, smiling.

“Your Majesty,” said Margarethe, solemnly, and curtsied.

Frederik darted to Margarethe’s side—hesitated, with tiny gestures—Margarethe nodded. He swung her up and around and into his arms, one of the solid hugs he knew she preferred, and held on.

Long moments later, she pressed him away, and swiped at one cheek. Did they not _dust_ in here?

“Margarethe,” said Frederik, looking down at her even as she looked up to meet his midnight eyes, and she heard that almost wondering note again. “Will you do me the honor of being my bride?”

Margarethe swallowed.

“There is a phrase,” she began carefully, “in my mother’s tongue.” She uncrumpled the handkerchief. “ _Colpo di fulmine_. In a literal translation, a bolt of lightning.” She held up the handkerchief to him, smoothing it with her thumb. At each corner, clouds gathered, gray shaded with blue and violet, and silver-and-gold lightning flashed downwards.

“What does it mean— _less_ literally?” asked Frederik.

Her Majesty stifled a laugh.

Margarethe turned a bit, to get a look at Her Majesty’s expression. Oh, yes, Queen Jeanette knew.

“In a poetic sense,” Margarethe continued, “the moment love strikes.”

Frederik removed one hand from her back and reached, trembling, for the handkerchief. He stopped just short of touching the fabric. “May I?”

Margarethe took a deep breath to compose herself. Another. “I shall be honored and delighted,” she said, pressing the handkerchief into his hand, “to be your bride.”

“And Denmark’s most beautiful embroidery shall adorn the gown of Denmark’s most beautiful queen-to-be,” said Frederik, grinning brilliantly and crushing her to him. He glanced the Queen’s way. “That is, most beautiful save only the one before her.”

“Flatterer,” said Queen Jeanette.

Frederik swept half a bow, all he could do with Margarethe still in his arms.

Margarethe leaned up to whisper in his ear. “I’m making you help with the embroidering.”

“I could do,” he said, “nothing less.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration drawn from [a quote from J.M. Darhower's _Sempre_](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/498138-colpo-di-fulmine-the-thunderbolt-as-italians-call-it-when).


End file.
